Results from a survey conducted by Cambridge-based Internet design and marketing company, Netflare revealed some startling statistics about small businesses and eCommerce.
Stats like:
- 23% of sites hadn't been updated since their launch leading to inaccurate and obsolete content
- Only 8% even had an eCommerce element to their site
- 25% had no way of tracking online sales
- 38% didn't have a budget at all for updating their sites
And the survey covered small businesses in 19 different sectors.
So if you run a small business and are starting to feel guilty reading over these stats, this is your wake up call! The amount of people using the Internet to do at least some of their shopping is growing all the time. Do you really want to miss out on all of these potential customers? Nobody said it was going to be easy, but you just can't neglect your website and expect to get sales.
Not Selling Goods Through Your Site?
If you are selling goods, it's time to offer them through your website. Not just through your brick and mortar store. Not only will this increase convenience for your customers (they love convenience by the way), it will expand your customer base across the world.
Not Tracking Online Sales?
Don't you want to know where your sales are coming from? Knowing this will only help you better target your customers in the marketing process.
Not Updating Your Site?
Do not leave out of date content on your site for potential customers to find. I promise you that they will not buy from you if you are still promoting some dated content that isn't even relevant anymore. It's just unprofessional, and nobody wants to take a chance buying from someone they've never heard of if they can't even present themselves in a professional manner.
No Budget for Site Updates?
If you don't have a budget for keeping a website updated, it's time to reorganize your budget. If you can't afford to hire your own designer, work with whoever designed your site and learn how to update it yourself. And make sure you have someone available to assist in case your site experiences technical difficulties.
It's the year 2008. It's time to start taking the Internet seriously as a way of attracting customers. Why deprive your business of more sales?
Save Your Customers Money, Get Them to Spend More with YouTimeliness is Crucial When Dealing with CustomersLead Your Customers to the CheckoutGetting Customers Without Google One Way That Your Customers Can Save Gas...Get Customers in Off the StreetIs Your Sales Team Too Pushy?Keep Your Customers ComfortableFinding Useful Online Business ResourcesHappy Customers Buy Again | |||
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Comments
small business numbers
I agree with whats said, but would also like to see numbers on how many of those businesses in this research use the web themselves to search for goods and services. I'd also be interested in seeing how many of those small business have a regular computer guy or technical person responsable for business operations to properly advise them on exactly what is being missed by not updating.
Its a fact that most small businesses still pick up a yellow pages when looking for services, so they naturally wouldn't even think of updating the website. As more younger people enter into business for themselves don't expect this numbers to change.
Info would be helpful...
Hey great advise here, its
Hey great advise here, its 2008 people, wake up where are you ?
Build it and they will come.
At least thats what some think. Most entrepreneurs forget the reason they built their site and that was to sell to customers. They also forget it takes hard work keeping the site content up to date and marketing if not people will become leery and not come back.
You're right.
RE: Wake Up Call - People Use the Internet to Shop
Those facts are sad. Why go to the trouble to publish a site to make money and then not try as hard as possible to succeed?
Underestimation
RE: Wake up call
It's a sad but true fact that so few businesses have successful ecommerce websites that are updated. I suspect a lot of it is because they don't have the budget or the knowledge to do ecommerce properly. I do web design for small businesses and while I try to create affordable and easily updated material that self promotes through SEO (search engine optimization) and linking that fact is most of the people I design for call me to update not out of lack of skill or ambition but through lack of time. In many cases they ARE the store in a very real sense with only a few if any employees. After working 7 days a week for a few months I doubt I would use my day off to update my online store either!
I have also found that there is a ton of misinformation on ecommerce that leads many to believe the only way to be found is through very expensive and cost prohibitive SEM (search engine marketing) on top of the enormous cost (from their point of view) of the initial set up. I ran acrossed one competitor charging $5.00 a SKU. A small business with 1,000 SKU's can't afford that! Not in addition to the $2000 for a unique website design and SEO services of $3000 plus the monthly fees! That's 10,000 for setup with no guarantee of a return on investment! This is an extreme example but it is not a unique one.
In my humble opinion when web developers and internet marketers find some way to make ecommerce a more affordable solution there will be a whole lot more small businesses taking advantage of it!
Good points...
Small Business eCommerce
I am one of those small business websites that are so frequently discussed. The SEO stuff is a bit daunting and I do read a lot about design, Meta Tags, links, back links and have worked hard and try to update my site on a regular basis. It is a hard world out there and somehow I have managed to stay on line of 7 years now. My customer base has grown and hopefully will continue to grow. We now have more than 2000 items on the site.
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